Agree with everything you said. Attendance also naturally lags - our attendance in 2009 when we were 3-9 was way higher than we were drawing in 2011 when we started off 6-0. Why? Because 2009 was still enjoying coming down from the Rose Bowl high, and fans in 2011 were waiting to see if we were for real! Spoiler alert ... we were not.
2023 really is huge. I hate to be melodramatic, but the national narrative constructed by people who don't follow our program really could vary this wildly with the following records this season:
5-7: "Arkansas Bielema" is real Bielema, and Illinois was "good" (still finished losing 4 of 5!) because Chase Brown was a beast and DeVito was better than expected. Once he was gone, they literally went right back to the same losing record as 2021. Plus, they played in the Big Ten West. Yeah, they're better than they were under Lovie but not by that much, and their ceiling will be random 8-win seasons and mostly 6-6 seasons. It's just hard to win there, and this is the best coach they have had in a long time.
9-3: Bret Bielema flat-out knows how to win in the Big Ten, and this isn't your dad's Illinois; they finally have someone who can realize that program's potential. He took them from 2 wins to 5 to 8 to 9, with this latest season being an IMPROVEMENT after losing a ton of talent to the draft! Memorial Stadium has even turned into a hard place to play! It really isn't hard to win there, they just needed to wait for the right guy, and that looks to be Bielema!
Again, might sound dramatic ... but this year can make or break our ascension, so to speak. Perception is fragile.